KATORGA WORKS I was first made aware of Adam and Colman’s record label Katorga Works through reading the I Could Die Tomorrow blog, where they both review records frequently. Getting to know their interests musically through their writing, many took notice when they began releasing records themselves. Existing a very short time, Katorga Works have released some exceptional recordings covering a fairly wide swath of genres and are staying quite active. While touring through New York in May 2011 and playing at the Katorga Works headquarters at 538 Johnson Avenue in Brooklyn, Joe Lachut and I were able to talk to Colman and Adam about the label and their future plans (while Will from Rational Animals cooled out silently in the corner). Interview by John Fahy and Joe Lachut, Intro by John Fahy MRR: OK, so I guess the label starts with the blog in a way? Is that accurate or no? Colman: I guess not really? Adam, you’ve always said that you’d like to keep a separation between the blog and the label because it would be like hyper-narcissism to blog about the label. MRR: Inspiration for the releases—did that come from what you were writing about, maybe? Adam: I don’t know if the inspiration came from that. I guess I personally realized I was completely useless and talentless, and thought I could focus my talents elsewhere when it came to the production of records. And Colman wasn’t the first person I was planning on doing a label with. I was going to do it with my old roommate Nick—Infest Nick, for all you Pittsburgh people—but that fell through. Colman and I moved in together and both realized that we wanted to do that. I don’t know if it really stems from the blog itself. Colman wasn’t an original member of the blog or anything like that. Colman: If it stems from anything, I think it comes mostly from Adam and I being roommates several years ago. We had similar tastes, which led me to ask if I could write occasional reviews for the blog. I had been putting out records for a while sporadically for my own bands. MRR: Was that elsewhere or was that here in New York?
MRR: So how long ago was the first release? Colman: It’s about a year ago. Adam: A little less, I think.
MRR: It seems like the label has really jettisoned from there, stayed pretty prolific since. Adam: Well, that was a dream first release, the split. You wouldn’t think that a split 7” in 2010 would be a very lucrative release, but we did three pressings of it. The first pressing sold out and the second pressing sold out immediately and we gained all of these distro contacts, etc. Dan held our hand throughout the whole process and it really helped a lot to do that with him. MRR: So you do a lot with distros? It wasn’t just straight mailorder? Adam: That record, because the audience of that record was mostly Japanese and European, we did like forty mailorders total for the first 800 records and the rest was just sending mass amounts to Japan and central Europe. Colman: That record is sort of an anomaly. You asked about the blog affiliations—no one who runs in this internet circle that Adam frequents was interested in it. It was almost exclusively record collectors, people into raw punk and stuff. Adam: Nobody downloaded it. It’s got like 400 downloads. We’ve pressed 1,100 at this point, whereas with the other records the download rate is like three times as much as the sales. I’ve always found that interesting. MRR: With the different styles of music that you guys have released, do certain distros only want to take certain bands? Like, whoever wants raw punk may not want Merchandise. Have you ever run into any of that? Adam: A few noise not music kids have actually taken the Merchandise LP. Colman: We lied to them and said it was raw punk. (laughter) Adam: No, we didn’t bother messaging all of these Japanese record stores saying like, “hey, you want to check out Dads?” That wasn’t something that crossed our minds.
Colman: Yeah, we started living here (Stolen Sleeves) about three years ago. MRR: So how did the first release come about? Adam: We just decided that we wanted to do a label together. The first record we put out was the Wankys/Lotus Fucker split. Dan from Lotus Fucker is one of my best friends and I talked to him about it. He shook my hand a year before the record came out, saying, “the band’s going to do this Wankys split, let’s do it together.” He called me nine months later and said “we’re starting this now.” But I think what made us decide to do the label was that Colman and I were very, very into Merchandise. Colman actually was like, “hey, Merchandise is putting out these tapes, why don’t they put out an LP? Merchandise should be an LP band.” Then we talked to Carson about it and he seemed into the idea. That’s the most tangible reason we started the label.
AVON LADIES